Col Fink’s Post

My home-bound holiday retreat- turned productive? 🏡 I have lived in Singapore for 13 years (it's my home) but lately, I'm a novice navigating Singapore's startup scene Over the last 2 months- I stepped into the dynamic hub of Draper Startup House HQ Singapore I was welcomed into a community with cool, young, and ambitious people intimated at first these early-stage founders made things seem easy each had their unique stories and backgrounds  from a Korean startup BUSINESS CANVAS to #ai , #Biotech, #B2B, and #SaaS founders-  They all had a uniting passion for change  and the diversity created a true VIBE 🚀 Dw, I explored further, by attending the bustling The Business Show Singapore held at Singapore EXPO (which was the size of a ⚽️ stadium) Navigating around 300 businesses wasn't easy (especially for my feet)  but meeting the CTOs + reps from industry titans like Zoho, Grab, Gojek, and Keka HR was truly fascinating- getting a glimpse into the workings of these innovative powerhouses- where we exchanged ideas and looked at HR tech solutions, tech stack, and more! Coming from a core research background 🔬 -this seemed new but  a reminder of the limitless potential that lies within the startup ecosystem. I'm looking forward to exploring more and networking in London! if you're interested drop your emails and we can grab a quick coffee+ chat ☕️ ⭐️ #Singapore #Startup #London #euntreprenurship #Networking

This week, our mindset.swiss incredible CTO, Avinash Naidu, took center stage at our latest event at 42 Kuala Lumpur. He talked about how is working in the world of tech.🎙️ 💻     And here's a glimpse of what Avinash shared:  🤝 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀: He shared the secrets of acing tech interviews and shared invaluable advice on how to stand out and succeed.    👨💻 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀: From effective project management strategies to defining roles within the team. He shared insights on how project management dynamics, roles of each team member and agile practices.    🔍 𝗖𝗧𝗢'𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴: As our Chief Technology Officer, Avinash revealed the key traits he values when building top-notch tech teams.    At Mindset, we specialize in #ecommerce, #platform, and #marketplace solutions for sustainable growth. Stay tuned for more engaging events and expert insights that empower your tech journey! 🌐💡    #techtalks #techinsights #mindsetevents #marketplace #digitalsolutions #digitaltransformation #appdevelopment #websitedevelopment #ecommerce #digitalmarketing #uxuidesign #startupmindset  

🚀 Exciting Career Milestones Achieved! 🌟 Reflecting on my journey, I am incredibly proud of the path I've carved, and I wanted to share some of the highlights that have shaped my career. 🌍 🎓 In my academic journey, I earned an A+ for my bachelor's thesis in Ethnology, sparking my passion for research and analysis. 💼 Between my bachelor's and master's programs, I took the leap and founded my first company, learning invaluable lessons about entrepreneurship and leadership. 🎓 At the master's level, I continued to excel, earning top-of-class honors in Applied Cultural Analysis. 📈 Concurrently, I initiated my own consultancy venture while pursuing my master's degree, expanding my skill set and network. 🔬 My expertise caught the attention of professors at the University of Copenhagen, who invited me to conduct research based on my article challenging conventional notions of entrepreneurship. Although I respectfully declined, the recognition was a testament to my commitment to pushing boundaries. 💰 I secured funding for a year of research and project management for a local group of heroes, allowing me to delve into the needs and dreams of young families—a pivotal experience that shaped my career. 📰 My insights in the field of young families' domestic needs made me a recognized expert, leading to our company being interviewed on the subject by media on multiple occasions. 🚀 At 29, I stepped into the role of Product Manager, and that same year, I played a pivotal role in launching a subsidiary in Riga, Latvia, for our Group. 🚀 I assumed full responsibility for launching a new product, demonstrating my ability to tackle challenges head-on. 👥 Managing 5 department leads in growth, design, development, and marketing, I embraced leadership roles with enthusiasm. 🌟 When offered to merge into the CEO position of the subsidiary at 30, I humbly declined, focusing on my passion for product management. 🚀 Successfully launching a cloud-based SaaS product was a defining moment in my career, marking my ability to deliver impactful solutions. 📈 Back in Copenhagen, I joined a promising scale-up as a Product Manager, establishing agile processes that paved the way for a staggering 137% YoY growth in my first year. 🤝 In my role, I noticed significant changes in colleagues' well-being after engaging in 1:1s. 🌱 I functioned as a mentor for budding Product Managers, nurturing talent and contributing to the growth of the industry. I'm grateful for every step of this incredible journey, and I look forward to the exciting adventures that lie ahead. 🌠 🔍 I am currently on the lookout for new opportunities that will allow me to further leverage my skills and expertise. If you know of any exciting prospects or have connections in the industry, I'd love to connect and explore potential collaborations. 🚀 Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my story! 🙏 #Career #Growth #JobSearch #Recruiters #HiringManagers #ProductManager

Introducing our new connector: Param (Pj) Lamba, CEO of ServizHub He and his co-founders have a passionate vision of empowering businesses, through our Intelligent Service Engine - VizHub, to become on-demand service ready leveraging a hybrid workforce (in-house, contractors, freelancers). As the CEO of ServizHub, he focuses on user-centered product-led growth strategy and strategic partnerships. He is a passionate product leader with 8 years of product leadership experience, working with distributed teams on PaaS and SaaS products. He started his journey 18 years ago as a software developer and moved to project management then consulting and finally to product leadership. "With 'outsmart problems with restless re-invention' as my motto, I enjoy collaborating with stakeholders, peers and team members to work on vision-driven products" says Param. The key highlights of his journey, so far, include: ⚡️ Leading the product team setup and refining the product management process for a Singapore based EdTech startup during its hyper growth stage. ⚡️ Leading the product management and collaboration with the education board on a PaaS digitally transforming the high stakes examinations for students across Singapore. ⚡️ Leading the implementation of the commodity trading and risk management system for the Palm Oil and Sugar business for a Malaysian commodity giant whose IPO in 2012 was the largest in Asia and was the 3rd largest in the world after Facebook. Param's dedication to fostering connections and promoting South East Asia's rich cultural heritage makes him a vital part of our network. His efforts ensure that like-minded individuals and businesses can unite to celebrate and enhance the region's cultural and economic landscape. #introdex #connectors #it #southeastasia

🌟 Happy New Year from Kuala Lumpur! 🌟 Are you a startup CEO in Malaysia or do you know someone who leads a remarkable startup in the region? Let's grab coffee and discuss your business and marketing journey. ☕ I feature outstanding startups in my weekly newsletter and highlight marketing strategies that drive the global ecosystem. Drop me a message or tag someone who might be interested. Here's to a year filled with growth, collaboration, and endless possibilities! #StartupLife #strategyOverBudget #globalmarketingtour

Ian Turnpenny is the co-founder of Malaysia-based Orgtomic, an employee skills mapping platform for growth companies and project teams.  He has been based in Asia for 15 years, mostly as an entrepreneur, building and selling two companies — one service company and one in SaaS. 👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech? Orgtomic is a new startup in the HR tech space. We provide a visualization layer for structured employee data, including skills and competencies.  The Orgtomic platform enables you to view your Org by any business dimension, including agile teams and squads and to track employee skills against benchmark requirements and identify skills gaps and training needs.  We work with startups, growth-stage companies and engineering teams within larger enterprises to build a custom skills framework and taxonomy, aligned to their business needs.  🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far? I've spent most of my career working in Asia, including a big stint in China. Setting up the office for a global recruitment brand in Beijing right before the Olympics was a lot of fun, and the opportunities then seemed boundless.  I also scaled my last company, Volcanic, to over 50 people in Malaysia before we exited — proving that KL is a great location for operating a global SaaS platform.  🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year? Gain early technical or professional domain expertise if possible. The structured way of learning will provide a life-long foundation.  I trained as an accountant initially and then moved more into sales and operations before stepping into tech/startups. Each step took time and constant re-skilling.  Ultimately, work hard, keep learning and enjoy what you do, and success will follow!  🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?  Wine. While drinking it, of course! 🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?  I have an 18-month-old baby — what is a movie?   🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor? Something with dark chocolate and salted caramel  Read more: https://bit.ly/3XrqbRw -- This is Ice Breakers, where we feature amazing founders, execs, operators and VCs from our community. Want the latest news in SEA tech? Subscribe for free on: www.BackScoop.com.

Starting 2024 with a new professional challenge as an Accelerated Growth Consultant at Google ! 🚀 I am very excited to announce that I got selected for a short term assignment in the Accelerated Growth Team! In this role, I will be helping promising Spanish companies and startups to achieve digital growth and maturity in the digital environment. In the coming months, I will focus on helping companies to: ➡️ Define their digital growth strategy based on their goals. ➡️ Propose and follow up the implementation of the Business Plan to reach these goals. ➡️ Measure and optimize their results based on their main KPIs. I am sure this will be a great opportunity to develop my business strategy and project management skills, and to learn from new businesses and Googlers from my new team. #Career #startup #growth #digitalmarketing

🚀 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝟒 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚! 🌏 Reflecting on my journey over the past four years as the Data Timezone Leader at Microsoft in Asia, I am filled with immense gratitude and pride. 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞, incubating Open Source, leading our App development platform business and Developer engagement, where I thought how complex and diverse Europe was, to lead Data in a truly dynamic, innovative and diverse Asia region has been a transformative experience 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐬? 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐀 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐮𝐧 :-) Working in Asia from India to China, Japan, Australia, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand to mention a few has taught me the true value of diversity. Each country has its unique culture, business environment, and customer behaviours. By embracing these differences, aligning to them and leveraging that diversity you create indeed opportunity. 𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 = 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐒 𝐧𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫 Understanding the specific needs and challenges of our customers in Asia was crucial, each country is completely different not only in language and culture, but business ecosystem and way of doing business, hierarchies, deal making... Building strong, trust-based relationships and delivering tailored solutions to their success 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬: The pace of change in the tech industry is rapid, and nowhere is this more evident than in Asia. Being agile and adaptable allowed us to stay ahead of market trends and continuously innovate to meet evolving customer demands, flexibility wins. 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚 = 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 and 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 In line with that, we faced unique situations, opportunities and initiatives we could never drive anywhere in the world, given the unique richness and diversity of the region we could incubate, learn and refine many strategies that we later brought WW to scale. 𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄: Leading a diverse team across multiple time zones required a shift in leadership style and personal mindset. Adaptability wins, but beyond that, making sure people trust, are truly empowered and are able to communicate and collaborate, mentoring and nurturing the next generation of tech leaders. 𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬: From a personal note, discovering the tastes of Asia, the amazing places, the so different way of doing things, and living in probably the best place of the world, Singapore, has been a real gift. As I look ahead, I am excited about the future possibilities that lie within the intersection of technology, business, and society, not sure what the next stop in the journey would be, but so far really enjoying the trip. Thank you to my incredible team, partners, and customers for your unwavering support and trust. 🌟 #Leadership #Diversity #Innovation #AI #DigitalTransformation #Microsoft #Asia #BusinessInsights #TechLeadership

🤔 A predictable canon of travelling to new places is to understand the ‘insignificance’ of our home environments. This can be either anxiety inducing or comforting depending on your perspective. ☝🏻 In the context of opportunity, and as someone with an interest in start-ups, this is exciting. I’ve been learning more about the GDP growth in countries like Indonesia, with a burgeoning younger population and an emerging powerhouse workforce. Similarly, experiencing the Phillipines, a young, skilled, and English-speaking workforce make it an exciting prospect for people looking to build new technology, with the benefit of proximity to wealthy neighbouring nations for investment. 🤝 By participating in the growth of these new markets and collaborating with the new innovators, we make ourselves more resilient to the changing tides of power as new players enter the global tech landscape. 🌏 Looking ahead into the future, I think we’ll see a greater spread of major technology players from under-appreciated nations across the world. Today's big tech companies may not necessarily dominate tomorrow's stage. If anyone knows of any exciting startups in emerging regions like Grab, JoyRide Superapp or Gojek that would be interesting to take a look at, please link in the comments below 👇🏻 😁

Week #6 of Building in Public - Rising Against the Odds Diary. Hey there, dear! 🤗 Our main milestone is to go live and allow users to fully utilize the features intended for the MVP. Initially, we planned for iterative development and releasing updates regularly, but we now realize that it's more efficient to set a clear goal for the product release and pursue it, rather than constantly releasing small updates and putting unnecessary pressure on the team. I've heard that if the landing page can't sell the product, the working product won't be of much help. I partially agree with this notion, but there are products where it's necessary to show how it really works because the problem it solves is not straightforward. Learning 📚 Today, someone asked me why I'm building two products: a community and a product. They wondered if it would be better to focus on the product and turn it into a profitable business first. I realized that even with web2 products, you engage in customer development with potential users who can become your community. By managing it properly, you provide updates, seek feedback, and offer value. Eventually, they can become a vital part of your growth. Another example is investors who sell their value-add, not just money. It's the benefit of being part of the community! Concern 😕 One of our developers recently mentioned that he can't contribute effectively as a part-time team member. It's true, I've seen how much more productive someone can be when working full-time. So now, we are down one person and will actively search for a new team member. That's also one of the reasons why I'm not taking on any "paid jobs" at the moment—I want to focus 100% on the company. Appreciation 🙏 I want to express my gratitude to all the incredible minds I met at the S21 meetup this week and the co-working event organized by The Collective. It was a small farewell to the Balinese community as I'll be heading to Kuala Lumpur for at least a month next week. I can confidently say that Bali has become my second home, providing me with nourishment during the Covid pandemic and challenging times. Thank you for taking the time to read. #kienfsd #web3 #entrepreneurship #buildinginpublic